Saving Rafael Lightwood-Bane
by Lucario564
Summary: Anyone who has read the Dark Artifices or has read a good bit of Malec fanfiction knows that Alec and Magnus adopted a son named Rafael from Buenos Aires. But how exactly did this happen? How did Alec find him? How did he convince Magnus to take in another child?


Alec walked in the streets of Buenos Aires with his group of Shadowhunters. He wore a translation rune across his side that allowed him to understand what the rest of his team was saying. They were searching for a group of rouge vampires that had been attacking mundanes. It was just after dawn, and just the time that the vampires should be coming out to feed.

The group eventually found them, one of the vampires latched onto a mundane girl's neck. One of the Shadowhunters in Alec's group immediately charged for the girl, and while Alec always wanted to have a plan before rushing in, the girl looked like she had lost a dangerous amount of blood. The Shadowhunter, Diego, ran to the girl and pulled the vampire off her neck, immediately checking to make sure she still had a pulse. He quickly looked to Alec and gave one quick nod.

Alec stepped forward out of the shadows and saw the group of vampires looking at Diego, and then him. There was probably about twenty of them, and multiple of them had blood dripping out of their mouths.

"On behalf of the Clave I, Alec Lightwood, order you to surrender!" he shouted, using the most authoritative voice that he could. The vampires however, seemed unaffected by it. Luckily though, they seemed to understand English enough for him not to have to use his extremely poor Spanish. "If you comply we will not have to harm any of you."

"And you'll do what with us, huh?" one of the female vampires at the front of the group snarled. "Hand us over to your precious _Clave_. They'll jump at the chance to kill any Downworlder."

Alec wished he could have corrected her. While he was doing his best to change relations in the Shadow World he's not stupid enough to believe that she wasn't right.

"You broke the law by murdering mundanes," he said, "and because of that we must hand you over to the Clave. However, if you give yourselves over now I can ask them to be lenient."

"We will never bow down to _Shadowhunters_ ," the same girl spat at him. Alec figured she was the leader of their little group. Before Alec could say anything else, the girl brought out her fangs and charged at him, her whole clan following behind her.

With no other choice, Alec ordered his group to attack as well. He knew that they'd win, and he'd bet the vampires knew that as well, but that fact didn't make him happy. He really was trying to change Shadowhunter and Downworlder relations but no group outside of New York was willing to budge. This certainly wouldn't help anything.

The fight didn't last long and only one of Alec's members suffered from any serious injuries. Diego took the mundane girl to a hospital while the rest of Alec's group headed back to the Institute. Alec however, decided to check out the rest of the block and make sure none of the vampires had escaped.

As he turned the corner he felt his sensor buzzing in his hand. He turned down a dark alley, and heard a deep, dark gurgling. That sound usually only meant one thing.

Demons.

Alec pulled an arrow out of his quiver and pulled it back in his bow, ready to fire. As he walked further in the alley he smelled rotten and burned flesh. The smell of ichor. That was when he heard something that made his blood run cold.

There was little to describe the sound that he heard. Nails on a chalkboard or the sound of tires screeching when a car brakes too fast. This sound however, was much worse. This was the sound of a terrified child screaming for help.

Without a second to think Alec charged inside the alley and saw five demons huddled in the corner around a hidden figure. Adrenaline rushed through him as he let the arrow in his hand fly and hit the demon that seemed closest to the child. It had its desired effect of killing the demon and having the others turn to face him. That was the great thing about demons, they were dumb. A simple noise could distract them from just about anything and this time, Alec was able to use that to his advantage.

The demons rushed towards him as he pulled another arrow back and let it fly, bursting another demon into ash and ichor. He didn't have time to grab another arrow before the other three demons were too close. He knocked the closest one back with his bow before pulling out a seraph blade and naming it _Ithuriel_. The blade lit up with a silver glow as he slashed away another one of the demons. This one was closer than the others had been, and Alec screamed in pain as he felt the burn of ichor touch his skin. He fought through the pain and slashed the next demon that came up to him.

The pain came to him with full force as the dirty blood covered him and burned through his clothes. Alec dropped _Ithuriel_ and fell to the floor. He crawled back the wall of the alley as the last demon slowly approached him. Looking past the demon he saw the scared child, a boy he now noticed, whimpering in the same corner and felt another surge of adrenaline run through him. As the demon got closer Alec saw two things flash in his mind. The gorgeous gold and green cat eyes of his boyfriend and the navy-blue skin of their little boy.

He had to get up.

Alec surged to his feet and grabbed an arrow from his quiver and stabbed it straight through the demon's eye. The demon vanished, and Alec let out a scream as he was hit with yet another blast of demon ichor. He fell to the ground hard and his witchlight fell in front of him, no color shining off the dark, dull stone.

Alec pulled out his _stele_ and put multiple _iratze_ runes on his burning skin. He looked up from healing himself as he saw the boy crawling towards him. As Alec got a closer look at him he saw that the boy looked no older than five. Dark brown eyes and skin with black hair, way too skinny than any boy should be. Alec felt sympathy for the boy. It couldn't be easy being a mundane with the sight and living on the streets could have only made it worse. Alec honestly didn't know how he had lived as long as he had.

As the boy weakly crawled over to him, muttering something that Alec couldn't hear, his hand accidently brushed the witchlight and it lit up in a bright white. The boy flinched back from the stone while Alec's eyes widened, and the stone went dull again. This boy wasn't a mundane; no mundane could make a witchlight glow like that. No one that didn't have angel blood could make a witchlight glow at all. This boy was a Shadowhunter.

After recovering from his shock, the boy looked at the witchlight like it was the most fascinating thing he'd ever seen. His dark brown eyes brightened and shined with something that Alec couldn't decipher. Maybe it was excitement, or just simple curiosity?

He held his hand out to the stone again, and paused, glancing at Alec who quickly nodded at him before the young boy touched the witchlight again and it lit up with its beautiful color again. The boy gave a grin to the stone, as if were proud of it, or maybe himself. Alec smiled along with the boy and hesitantly reached his hand out to him. The young Shadowhunter looked at him with scared eyes, and Alec felt the need to reassure him.

"Don't worry," he said softly. "You don't have to be afraid of me." The boy didn't seem to understand what Alec said, and he cursed himself for not paying more attention when Hodge taught languages when he was a kid. He tried to think of another way to show the child that he could be trusted.

Alec reached out his hand again and before the boy could flinch back Alec touched the witchlight that was still in the boy's hand. The color of the stone shown brighter than it had before as they both held it together.

"See," Alec said, "I'm," he said, pointing to himself, "like you." He pointed to the boy. He seemed to understand this better and kept his hand firmly on the stone, along with Alec's.

Alec sat in the infirmary of the Buenos Aires Institute with the little boy beside him, unconscious. Soon after Alec had saved the boy he collapsed with exhaustion and Alec carried him back to the Institute. Like every other Institute, the one in Buenos Aires was disguised to mundanes as some run-down hotel called "Hotel Internacional."

Alec had sat with the young Shadowhunter ever since they had come back to the Institute. Every day Alec sat by his side as the child slept, only waking a few times to eat small bits or, the less desirable, from nightmares. Multiple times through the night, Alec had woken up to hearing the young child screaming in Spanish, and every time Alec's heart broke just a little bit more.

Other than his family, Alec had never felt so protective over something before and he didn't know why. Though he did know that this child needed help, and Alec was willing to do just about anything to help him. As soon as he brought in the young boy and made sure he would be alright he talked with the head of the Institute. It was rare, especially since the Dark War, for a city to not know of every Shadowhunter living in it.

"Sebastian had killed everyone in this Institute in his attacks during the Dark War, or so we thought," Guadalupe had said. "We figured there were no Shadowhunters left in the city until my family came to run the Institute."

"Is there anything about the family that had lived here? Anything about them having a son, maybe even his name," Alec had practically begged. Maybe if they knew of his family, they could find someone in Idris willing to look after the boy.

"The Blackwell's ran everything here before then and their whole family line was killed by Sebastian, along with all the records here, so no, there is no record of the poor boy, and he has no family to go to."

After hearing that Alec had almost immediately made up his mind about what he wanted to do, but it wasn't all up to him. He told Guadalupe of his plan and she saw no problem of it, but there was still one more person Alec had to convince.

So, he'd made the phone call asking the person on the other end if they would be willing to come down to Buenos Aires. He'd agreed, albeit hesitantly, and now Alec waited by the boy's side. His small hand still gripped firmly around the witchlight that continued to glow under his touch. He had refused to let it go, almost as if it were some sort of security blanket.

Behind him Alec heard a portal opening and smiled slightly while silently praying that everything would work out. He stood and turned just in time to see Magnus step out of the bright blue portal, dressed in a bright white suit with his hair spiked high and glitter running though it. Among seeing him, Magnus smiled brightly at his boyfriend.

"Alexander," Magnus greeted, walking over to Alec and giving him a quick kiss. Alec returned it and smiled lovingly back at Magnus, happy to see the man he loved again.

"How is Max doing?" Alec asked.

"Same as he was yesterday, darling. After your phone call I dropped him off at the Institute with your mother. Then I portalled over to Los Angeles to check the ley lines and say hi to Malcom, as well as Emma and Julian surprisingly, and then came here." Magnus gave him a quick summary. "As happy as I am to see you I do have to admit that your phone call was quite concerning. Is something wrong?" Alec glanced down at the young boy on the bed in the infirmary and Magnus followed his gaze. His eyes widened at he looked back at Alec questioningly.

"It's kind of a long story, but just let me tell it and we can decide what we want to do next. Okay?" After staring back at the boy for a few seconds Magnus eventually nodded at Alec.

Alec gave him the quickest version of the story that he could, which wasn't all that quick if he was being honest with himself. He stuttered and stumbled at times, but Magnus never interrupted him, except for when Alec got the part about the demons when Magnus yelled at him to be more careful. He really should have seen that coming though. After finishing his talk with Guadalupe Alec paused for a few seconds, debating how to word what he was asking of his boyfriend.

"You want to adopt him, don't you?" Magnus said before Alec could figure it out. Alec should have seen this coming as well. His boyfriend knew him better than anyone and at times, especially now, could read him like an open book.

"I was thinking about it," Alec admitted. "Obviously I wasn't going to decide before talking with you, but I asked Guadalupe and she saw nothing wrong with it. He has nowhere to go and even though we only adopted Max a little while ago I still think we're ready, but you know I won't push you if this isn't something you want as well." Alec felt his face heat up slightly when he finished and realized he had been rambling.

"It's not that I don't want to adopt another child it's just that I, I know exactly how the Clave will react to this and it won't be pretty Alexander. You know that don't you?" Alec gazed down at the floor. He did know how the Clave would react.

They didn't care when they had adopted Max simply because was a warlock, a Downworlder. The Clave didn't care what happened to him, but this boy, he was a Shadowhunter and they would care about that. They were running dangerously low on Shadowhunters since the Dark War and they wouldn't approve of one of their only young ones being raised by a Downworlder like Magnus, or the fact that he would be raised with two fathers.

"I don't care," Alec said eventually, and the great thing was that it was finally true. For once he didn't care about what the Clave thought. "I don't care what the Clave would try to do. I protect my family and I'd kill all of them before I'd let them tear us apart. I'm sick of the Claves laws, it's the reason we can't get married, and the reason it took me so long to be open about who I really am, but I _won't_ let them stop me from helping this child."

Magnus stared at him with wide, shining eyes. He was gazing at him like he was the most precious thing in his entire universe. That gaze coming from the man he loved was enough to make Alec duck his head down and the feel the heat returning to his face.

Magnus still took a few minutes to respond and it was making Alec anxious. He didn't want his boyfriend to feel like he was pressuring him, but he also wanted to make it clear that the Clave wouldn't be reason that they wouldn't take in the boy.

"Is their something else?" Alec asked hesitantly.

"Tessa," Magnus whispered. It was so soft that Alec couldn't be sure that he'd heard it, but he did, and it made Alec feel terrible. Tessa Gray, one of Magnus' warlock friends who had multiple children. Children that weren't immortal like she was, and she had to watch as her children grew old and died. She had never recovered from that loss, and most likely never would. It made Alec feel terribly selfish. He knew that for Magnus, losing Alec would be hard enough, but losing a child too could be, crippling. It was wrong for Alec to ask Magnus to do that to himself.

"Magnus, I'm sor-" Alec cut himself off as he heard the cry coming from the bed beside him. The boy was convulsing and screaming in the bed beside him. Alec immediately rushed for the boy, and saw at out the corner of his eye that had Magnus had too.

"¡Socorro! ¡Aléjate! ¡Alguien por favor!" the boy screamed. The translation rune that Alec had on earlier had burned away and he couldn't understand what the child had said, but Magnus seemed to. He looked down at the boy sympathetically and leaned down to whisper something in his ear.

"No te preocupes. Estás a salvo. No dejaré que nadie te lastime otra vez," he whispered in a soothing voice. Whatever Magnus had said seemed to be working as the young boys screams turned to whimpers. Alec reached down to grab the boy's hand that was clamped around the witchlight and grabbed it along with him. The stone brightened and buzzed stronger in their combined hands and the boy went quiet after a few minutes, peacefully sleeping once again.

Both men remained with the child as he slept, making sure that he was okay before they both sat back down in their chairs. After a few minutes Alec was going to finish his thought from before, when Magnus interrupted him.

"Okay," Magnus said

"W-what?" Alec asked dumbly. Magnus smiled fondly at him

"I want to do it. It's going to be hard, especially with Max and the boy's nightmares, but if this is something you want, then I think we should do it."

"Don't just do this for me Magnus. What I want is for you to be happy, no matter what that is. Is this something _you_ actually want?" Magnus gave him a loving smile as he reached up to cup his cheek.

"Alexander, haven't I already told you before? With you, it's always yes." Alec smiled brightly as he gave his boyfriend a long, sweet kiss. Once they pulled apart they both simply stared at each for a few moments before fully pulling away to look at their soon to be son.

"Does he have a name?" Magnus asked.

"No," Alec replied. "I guess we get to decide that." Magnus looked like he wanted to reply, but held himself back. He even opened his mouth once or twice, but ended up closing it. "What is it?"

"W-what about," Magnus said slowly. "What about Rafael?"

Raphael Santiago, a vampire that had died during the Dark War. He refused to kill Magnus when Sebastian had ordered him to, and it cost him his life. Magnus had practically raised Raphael when he was turned into a vampire and had felt responsible for him. His death had been extremely hard on the warlock. Alec reached out and grabbed his boyfriend's hand, holding it tightly and giving him support.

"It's perfect," he answered. "Rafael Santiago Lightwood-Bane? I think it has a nice ring to it, don't you?"

Before Magnus could answer they turned to see the boy, now named Rafael, had opened his eyes and was looking at them. They went to the boy and Magnus explained who he was, and asked the boy if he wanted to stay with them.

After glancing at Alec for a few seconds and then back at Magnus, the little boy nodded. They spent the rest of the evening speaking to Rafael, and even teaching him a bit of English. Alec knew there was still a lot to do. Max hadn't even met Rafael yet, but as Alec glanced at his boyfriend talking with their new son, he was sure they could figure it out.

 **I had to write this for an English assignment and so I just figured I'd also post it on here. I adore Malec and both of their children and I wanted to create a story that showed their bond with each other and how they could have bonded with Rafael. I know there are a lot of stories on fanfiction about adopting Rafael and I just wanted to put my own take on it.**

 **Translations:**

 **Rafael "** **HELP ME! GET IT AWAY! SOMEONE PLEASE!"**

 **Magnus "** **Don't worry. You're safe. I won't let anyone hurt you again"**

 **I'm sorry of either of these are wrong. I just used a website, but I checked with my friend who is taking a Spanish class and he said they were okay.**


End file.
